Podcast Summary: "Puzzle Mania with NYT's Mini Creator"

Podcast: All Of It (WNYC)
Host: Alison Stewart
Guest: Joel Fagliano, New York Times Puzzle Editor & Mini Crossword Creator
Date: October 21, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, "Puzzle Mania," host Alison Stewart speaks with Joel Fagliano, the creator of the New York Times Mini Crossword and editor of the new book, Puzzlemania. The conversation delves into the cultural significance of puzzles, the science and art behind creating them, and the impact of NYT's growing suite of games. Listeners take part in a live puzzle game, exploring the quirky and beloved language of crossword puzzles—known to aficionados as "crosswordese." The episode celebrates the timeless pleasure of puzzles and examines their evolving role in our daily lives and in contemporary digital culture.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Allure of Puzzles and the Language of Crosswordese

• Family Traditions & Early Influence

  • Joel describes growing up in a word-loving family that played games like Scrabble and Boggle, fostering his early love of puzzles (02:41).
  • Quote: "You just, you pick up words over time coming from a word loving family." (03:00, Joel)

• Crosswordese as Insiders’ Club

  • Discussion of words like “Ono,” “Eno,” and “nene” that recur in crosswords, creating a shared language among solvers.
  • Quote: "It makes it sort of this exclusive club... it feels really good to know Elvis Presley's middle name is Aaron. A-R-O-N. Is that useful knowledge in the rest of your life? No, not really." (03:46, Joel)

2. Puzzles & Cognition: The Brain Science Angle

• Alison shares her experience using puzzles in speech therapy after a brain injury (04:28), prompting a discussion of puzzles’ cognitive benefits.
• Joel notes while he isn’t a neuroscientist, puzzles are used in dementia therapy to stimulate recall and make new connections in the brain (04:49).
  • Quote: "[P]uzzles are a way of testing your recall of things, you know, and also of ... exploring new avenues in the brain, making new connections, new synapses." (05:00, Joel)

3. Live On-Air Crosswordese Game (05:27 – 13:35)

Listeners call in to solve crossword clues featuring classic crosswordese.

• Notable clues and answers:

  • "Cookie in the shape of its first and last letters" — Oreo (06:08, Joel)
  • "Sea predator that can grow to roughly the size of a school bus" — Orca (07:56, Joel)
  • "Berry whose name is 3/4 vowels" — Acai (08:21, Joel)
  • "Bird able to run faster than the fastest human, 3 letters" — Emu (09:07, Alison)
  • "Olympics event with two accents in its name" — Epee (12:08, Joel)
  • "Musician Brian, who composed Windows 95 startup music" — Eno (12:28, Joel)
  • "Reputation or Red for Taylor Swift (three letters, most-used crossword answer)" — Era (13:32, Joel)

• Alison and Joel banter about public radio’s puzzle-loving audience and the inevitability of certain “crosswordese” words (08:25, Alison; 12:45, Joel).

4. Engineering the Aha! Moment

• Joel discusses puzzle construction, emphasizing empathy for the solver and the importance of fairness. He notes that questions with a “?” usually signal a pun or trick (06:51, Joel).
  • Quote: "If you’re solving a crossword and you see a clue with a question mark at the end of it, it’s going to be a bad pun... There is a pun incoming." (07:14, Joel)

5. The Art of the Mini Crossword

• The Mini was created to be more accessible, eliminating obscure “crosswordese” in favor of common vocabulary and clever clues.
  • Quote: "My goal with the mini crossword is to broaden the audience ... to not include words that you only know if you do a bunch of puzzles." (09:27, Joel)
  • Joel notes he has crafted the Mini daily since 2014—over 3,500 puzzles (16:40).

6. Inside Puzzle-Making: Jargon and Process

• Puzzle-makers use insider terms like “the grid” (diagram) and “fill” (words crossing through the grid). They also worry about “fair corners”—ensuring that sections don’t become unsolvable through the pileup of tricky words or trivia (11:04, Joel).

7. The Evolution & Renaissance of NYT Games

• Joel discusses the broadening of the NYT puzzles’ audience, especially through newer digital games like Wordle and Connections (14:45).

• The new book, Puzzlemania, celebrates both classic NYT puzzles (e.g., acrostics) and newer games, adapting them for print with creative twists (16:02, Joel).

  • Quote: "What this book was ... you can open it and just start playing ... there are lots of visual puzzles. There’s trivia. There are pieces on the different puzzle makers who make up the New York Times team." (16:02, Joel)

8. Adapting Digital Games to Print

• Joel explains how interactive games like Wordle and Connections are translated into book format with modified gameplay ("Wordle in One," meta-puzzles, etc.) (17:21).

9. The Difficulty—and Joy—of Connections

• Joel attributes Connections’ reputed challenge to its creator’s unique style and creativity:
  • Quote: "She's just a brilliantly creative person ... the wavelength that she’s operating [on] is not the wavelength that other people are operating on." (18:25, Joel)
• Ultimately, the goal is to be “hard, but delightfully solvable.” (18:54, Joel)

10. Puzzles as Reprieve in Everyday Life

• Joel shares that puzzles provide him with a “reprieve” and a way to either start or close his day, sometimes using Spelling Bee as a mental warm-up (19:15).
  • Quote: "To me, puzzle solving time is kind of this sacred break." (19:15, Joel)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Crosswordese:
  • "...it makes it sort of this exclusive club that it feels really good to be a part of." (03:46, Joel)
• On Puzzle Empathy:
  • "You really try not to make a puzzle just for you ... you have to put yourself in the shoes of the solver." (06:53, Joel)
• On the Role of Puzzles:
  • "...puzzle solving time is kind of this sacred break." (19:15, Joel)
• On Mini Crosswords Popularity:
  • "I've made the mini crossword for the New York Times since 2014 every day. That's like over 3,500 minis." (16:40, Joel)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction & Setup: 00:07 – 02:33
• Early Puzzle Influences: 02:34 – 03:46
• Crosswordese & Community: 03:46 – 05:27
• Puzzles and Brain Science: 04:23 – 05:27
• On-Air Puzzle Game: 05:27 – 13:35
• Puzzle Construction & Aha! Moments: 06:36 – 07:39
• Designing the Mini Crossword: 09:17 – 10:18
• Puzzle-Making Jargon: 11:04 – 11:42
• Live Player Calls: 11:45 – 13:35
• The Book 'Puzzlemania' & Evolution of NYT Games: 14:24 – 16:02
• Adapting Digital Games to Print: 17:21 – 18:12
• On the Hardness of Connections: 18:18 – 19:07
• Puzzles as Life Reprieve: 19:07 – 19:52

Tone & Style

The tone is friendly, brainy, and enthusiastic—a blend of NPR-style accessibility and puzzle-lover’s in-jokes. The banter is good-natured, with a communal spirit that playfully celebrates the quirks of the puzzle world while welcoming newcomers.

For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

This episode offers both a warm invitation into the world of puzzles and a deep dive for longtime fans. From the science of cognition to the nuanced craft of clue-writing, Alison and Joel cover the joy, the challenge, and the cultural cachet of puzzles in the New York Times and beyond. Whether you’re a crossword newbie or a “crosswordese” master, Puzzle Mania provides inspiration—and plenty to chew on the next time you pick up a pencil or fire up the app.